Review of Colson Whitehead’s novel ‘Harlem Shuffle’ for Harvard Review | December 7, 2021

Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle is a bravura performance, an immersive, laugh-out-loud, riveting adventure whose narrative energy is boosted by its memorable hero and a highly relevant backdrop of social injustice. Set from 1959 to 1964, the novel comprises three episodes charting the precarious rise of Ray Carney, a self-made man who habitually dips and sometimes dives into New York’s criminal underworld. Read my review here.

Review of Laila Lalami’s book ‘Conditional Citizens’ for Harvard Review | November 8, 2020

Conditional Citizens book cover

In her new book Conditional Citizens, Laila Lalami argues that America’s vaunted diversity and pluralism are undermined by actions designed to differentiate systematically between an “us” group and an “other” group. Lalami pairs her compelling personal narrative with perceptive and wide-ranging insights to reveal the cultural, social, and historical forces that create our modern American caste system. Read my review here.

Review of Esi Edugyan’s novel ‘Washington Black’ for Literary Review of Canada | October 6, 2018

Esi Edugyan brings extraordinary talent and ingenuity to the subject of slavery in her epic novel, Washington Black, a sprawling tale of adventure centred on a young boy who escapes from slavery on a Barbadian plantation in the early 1830s. Read my review here.

(Note: Subscribe to the Literary Review of Canada to access, or look for the October print edition at your local bookstore.)

‘Radiant Night’ release is September 18! | September 8, 2018

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to announce that my novel Radiant Night comes out September 18!

Radiant Night is about Ludwig Mason, the only Marine to have survived an explosion that reduced his military Humvee to a smoldering wreck in war-torn Fallujah. Back home on American soil, the 28-year-old Iraq War vet struggles through the traumatized, booze- and drug-addled aftermath. He fears that he’s lost his family, his friends, and his last chance at anything when something like fate intervenes in the form of a mysterious stranger named Mrs. S.

Radiant Night book cover

The old fortune-teller tells Ludwig about an heirloom seized from her family by Nazis decades ago―a fabled tarot deck that has 23 major arcana cards instead of the customary 22. A deck that she believes is now located somewhere in Mobile, Alabama.

Whatever it was that brought Ludwig to Mrs. S.―be it chance, or fate―now draws him into an hallucinatory odyssey fraught with arcane symbols, danger, and paranoia as he ventures to retrieve the missing tarot deck and, with any luck, a piece of his own lost soul.

Initial reactions have been positive:

“A rich neo-noir thriller that feels as original as it does compelling.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Lohier’s prose is enthralling. One dark secret dissolves into another, each one more treacherous and shocking. Ludwig Mason, broken and searching, is a character you’ll never forget; more than a hero or anti-hero, he is heartbreakingly human.”

— Matt Marinovich, author of The Winter Girl

I’m excited to share Radiant Night with you and hope you’ll enjoy it. Following are some links to leading online booksellers (it will also be available soon as an Audible audiobook, but I don’t have a link for that yet):

Thanks for your support!

Best regards,
Patrick